Friday, December 2, 2011

9 Tallest Mountains In Solar System

Mount Everest, at 29,029 feet tall (5.5 miles), is the tallest mountain on earth. But, not known to many, Hawaii's Mauna Kea is actually much more taller than Everest, which is actually 33,465 feet tall, although only 13,796 of which are above sea level.

If we look beyond our planet earth, there are lots and lots of taller mountains compare to Everest and Mauna Kea. Following are the tallest mountains in various worlds of the Solar System. Heights are given base to peak.

Arsia Mons is 270 miles (approximately 435 kilometres) in diameter, almost 12 miles high (more than 9 kilometers (5.6 mi) higher than the surrounding plains), and the summit caldera is 72 miles (approximately 110 km) wide. It experiences atmospheric pressure lower than 107 pascals at the summit. Except for Olympus Mons, it is the biggest volcano in volume. Arsia Mons has 30 times the volume of Mauna Loa in Hawaii, the largest volcano on the Earth.

Mauna Kea (Hawaii) has an altitude of 4,205 meters (2,6 mi) - much lower than Mount Everest. However, Mauna Kea is an island and if the distance from the bottom of the nearby ocean floor to the peak of the island is measured, then Mauna Kea is taller than Mount Everest. Mauna Kea is over 10 km (6,2 mi) tall compared to 8.848 m (5,5 mi) for Mount Everest - making it the Earth's tallest mountain.